Taxpayers and bank bailouts Alex Wild Research Director, TaxPayers’ Alliance August 2015
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ritish taxpayers have always been reluctant shareholders in RBS. Bailing out this bank, and for that matter Lloyds was never an "investment" in the typical sense of the word; it was part of an emergency recapitalisation plan.
The government’s decision to start offloading taxpayers’ shares in RBS is a welcome one. Those who disapprove, bemoaning the "loss" that the government has made often demonstrate either poor understanding of the situation or wilful ignorance. First and foremost, by selling the first tranche of shares in the bank, the government merely crystalised a loss that was incurred at the time the shares were purchased. Regardless, with such small trading volumes for a bank of RBS’s size because of a very limited free float, the market for their shares is relatively illiquid. This makes it difficult for investors to buy a substantial amount of shares without pushing the price up significantly, or indeed sell large numbers of shares without sending the price crashing down. Increasing liquidity in the market for shares and loosening the government’s grip could have a positive impact on the share price, meaning the Treasury can sell more stock at a higher price further down the line. Returning the bank to the private sector also sends a signal to investors that it is being normalised and run for commercial rather than political purposes. The share price has been flat for five years and with the balance sheet significantly deleveraged and the capital position much stronger than it was seven years ago, it is the right time to start closing the book on this sorry episode.
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But how did we get here in the first place? The reasons for RBS’s monumental failure are myriad and not repeated in great detail here, but the Financial Service Authority’s 2011 report pointed to 6 main reasons: • Significant weaknesses in RBS’s capital position during the Review Period, as a result of management decisions and permitted by an inadequate regulatory capital framework. • Over-reliance on risky short-term wholesale funding. This model became unviable when credit markets seized up. • Concerns and uncertainties about RBS’s underlying asset quality, which in turn was subject to little fundamental analysis by the FSA. • Substantial losses in credit trading activities, which eroded market confidence. Both RBS’s strategy and the FSA’s supervisory approach underestimated how bad losses associated with structured credit might be. • The ABN AMRO acquisition, on which RBS proceeded without appropriate heed to the risks involved and with inadequate due diligence. • An overall systemic crisis in which the banks in worse relative positions were extremely vulnerable to failure. RBS was one such bank. It’s also important to remember just how huge RBS was. Its 2008 balance sheet shows total assets of more than £2.4 trillion - 58 per cent more than the GDP of the UK at the time. By comparison, Lehman Brothers had total assets of some $640 billion (£442 billion) a few months before its bankruptcy which was by far the largest in history. We will never know exactly how bad the fallout would have been had RBS been allowed to go bankrupt, but there can be little doubt that it would have had a catastrophic effect on the UK, and indeed the global economy. Nevertheless, at the time of the bailout, we suggested three responses the government should have considered to limit the need for taxpayers’ to step in. Whilst these measures may not have obviated the need for a rescue, they could well have reduced the amount of assistance required. This is what we suggested at the time: • Suspension of mark to market rules that cannot function effectively in the absence of a liquid market for many key assets. This would significantly ease the pressure on many banks’ balance sheets. If mark to market had been in place during the 1980s all 10 of the largest US banks would have become insolvent. • Big interest rate cuts: While inflation is currently quite high it is widely expected to fall substantially in the coming year. Cuts in Bank of England rates might have a limited effect on market rates but it will help some borrowers more immediately and any effect on the market rate would be valuable. Bank Rate was 4.5 per cent at the time the government announced the rescue package and cut to 0.5 per cent five months later in March 2009 where it has remained ever since. • Strengthening the credibility of deposit insurance: 97 per cent of depositors were covered even before the increase in the deposit protection limit to £50,000; however it is understandable - in the wake of crises such as that at the Rural Payments Agency - that ordinary people are not entirely confident those guarantees protect their interests.
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The bailouts of RBS and Lloyds are the main interventions people remember, but taxpayer support for banks didn’t end there. These are the main ways taxpayers provided support to banks in response to the financial crisis according to the National Audit Office. • Recapitalisation of RBS and Lloyds: The government agreed to underwrite the issuance of billions in "Tier 1 capital". That is to say the government offered to buy shares under a number of conditions concerning pay, governance and lending. • Nationalisation of Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley. • Credit Guarantee Scheme: Launched at the same time as the recapitalisation programme, the scheme allowed eligible participants (adequately capitalised, UK incorporated deposit-taking banks and building societies) to issue unsecured debt securities to raise capital with taxpayers acting as the guarantor. Taxpayer exposure was capped at £250 billion and peaked at £140 billion before the scheme’s closure in 2012. A fee (50 basis points plus 100 per cent of the institution’s median five-year Credit Default Swap (CDS) spread during the twelve months to 7 October 2008) was charged for use of the scheme and 14 institutions took advantage of taxpayer support ranging from Barclays to Tesco. • Bank of England Liquidity measures: Two facilities were introduced: The Discount Window Facility (DWF) and the Special Liquidity Scheme (SLS). The DWF allows participants to borrow highly liquid assets (gilts usually, but sterling cash at Bank’s discretion) in return for less liquid collateral (levels A, B and C) for a period of 30 days. The fee charged is dependent on the amount being borrowed and the collateral put up. The SLS allowed banks and building societies to swap mortgage-backed securities for Sterling Treasury Bills (maximum maturity six months). The swap was for three years and a fee was charged (based on the spread between three-month sterling Libor and the three-month sterling general collateral gilt repo rate) Assets provided as collateral had to have a value greater than that of the Treasury Bills being borrowed. The scheme closed in 2012. • Asset Protection Scheme: Announced three months after the initial bailout, the scheme was launched to protect banks with toxic assets on their balance sheets against heavy losses on those assets. On any such losses, RBS would bear the first £60 billion with taxpayers meeting 90 per cent of any losses thereafter. RBS insured £282 billion via the scheme. • Loans to the Financial Services Compensation Scheme: This enabled the FSCS to guarantee customer deposits up to a value of £50,000 or more. This gave depositors confidence that their money was safe and wouldn’t be frozen for months on end, discouraging people from withdrawing it all at once. • Loans to insolvent banks so they could repay customer deposits over £50,000. This included the four main Icelandic Banks. A recent report commissioned by the government stated that, assuming the remaining shares were sold at their 5th June value, UK taxpayers would end up with a £14.3 billion profit from the government’s interventions in the financial sector. But any income from fees, interest and asset disposal is far below what one would expect from a normal "investment" which none of these measures were. Considering the enormous support provided to UK banks (£1.16 trillion at peak) and the massive potential losses taxpayers were exposed to, especially through the Asset Protection Scheme, these interventions have benefited the financial sector at the expense of taxpayers.
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What next? It remains to be seen exactly how the government will proceed with the disposal of the remaining shares, but a big retail offering seems likely. The approach with Lloyds shares this year, as noted by Patrick Hosking, Financial Editor of The Times, has been to shun big placings and "Tell Sid" style offers in favour of "dribbling out" the stock somewhat under the radar. This appears to have been well executed and hasn’t depressed the share price. Taxpayers’ stake in Lloyds has fallen from 25 per cent in January to under 15 per cent with the amount raised higher than in previous share placings. Whilst a major, heavily marketed retail offer may offer George Osborne political capital, taxpayers would be far more appreciative if the chancellor went about the disposal of the remaining shares in a manner more helpful to the public finances.
What happens next time? The policy response to the financial crisis has been vast, with a Third Basel Accord, The Vickers Report in the UK and Dodd-Frank in America amongst the most significant contributions. The aim globally should be for a healthy balance between standardisation and diversity which protects taxpayers. But there is a real danger that policy makers are misdiagnosing the causes of the crisis and trying to deflect blame from themselves. Attacks on hedge funds, low tax jurisdictions and high executive pay are motivated by different agendas and do nothing to address the problems that led to the crisis. Policy makers’ time would be better spent looking at why monetary policy was expansionary at a time of low inflation rather than trying to grab headlines with dubious "crack downs". Regulators also need be conscious that their response could easily sow the seeds of the next crisis. Standardisation of regulations internationally risks making booms and busts bigger. If regulators encourage organisations to hold the same assets and behave in the same way when things go wrong, systemic risk will increase. For instance if capital adequacy ratios are the same in every jurisdiction, the amplitude of credit cycles will be increased. As Sinclair and Rohá˘c point out, if every country is at the same phase in the cycle, the risk to the entire system is higher than if there were countries at different stages with individual, offsetting credit booms and busts. A lack of diversity will make the system more vulnerable in much the same way that a monoculture makes a whole crop more vulnerable.
How can taxpayers be protected in the future? As Allister Heath has pointed out, bankruptcy law is no different for a major financial institution than it is for a hair salon. So going into the crisis, once it became clear RBS was insolvent, the choice was an between an uncontrolled bankruptcy and a huge taxpayer bailout. Bailed out banks were deemed "too big to fail." But even the largest institutions can be wound up without causing systemic crises provided the correct mechanisms are in place. Options now at the Bank of England’s disposal include sacking staff, selling parts of a failed institution’s business to the private sector, transferring failed operations to a "bridge bank" or ordering a "bail-in", imposing losses on bondholders and forcing banks to recapitalise internally with private money. This represents a significant step in the right direction.
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